The Ultimate World Tournament
by Rahn Mechabot VII
Summary: PG-13 for some minor swearing and violence. The group must take on the ultimate duelist in his own twisted tournament. Can Yugi defeat this new threat and can Mokuba and Serenity fill the dueling shoes of their older brothers?
1. Default Chapter

This is a fic idea that I've had in my head for quite a while. I've only written four chapters thus far though over the course of the past few months. Currently my other fics are on hold because I am seriously considering rewriting them all. Plus the fact that work interfers a bit and me trying to get into an art college is somewhat haulting their progress.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this Yu-Gi-Oh! fic. It's my first one and it takes place about a year after the battle city tournament. I know I said I wouldn't write a fic in this category, but...the idea, in my mind, was too good to pass up.

Enjoy, everyone!

Edit: I noticed some mistakes I made on certain dates and times in the story, not to mention a few typos. I've fixed what I've spotted thus far.


	2. The Plot Begins

Domino Harbor: 04-10-04: Saturday: 10:45 a.m. 

It was a rather foggy day in the harbor, as it is almost every day. Seagulls squawking in the distance and the sound of a horn from a ship far offshore were the only sounds to be heard. Usually the harbor was much busier. There would be ships being loaded and unloaded, several sailors walking about, and trucks taking cargo out into the city. But it was quiet today, on account that everyone had gotten the weekend off for the Fourth of July. Mid-day was fast approaching, and the fog was beginning to lift, revealing an odd looking figure walking amongst the alley in between the warehouses. They wore a long, black cloak with a purple eye on the hood, and a gold chain that hung across the hood as well.

They walked through numerous alley's, often retracing their steps to make sure they were not followed. After determining that they weren't, they proceeded to a cellar door that led under one of the warehouses. The robed figure approached the side of the doors where a keypad slid out of the warehouse wall. They looked around once more, then put in the password. The cellar doors slowly opened and the figure walked down into its depths, the keypad hiding itself in the wall once more. The robed figure descended into the dark depths as the doors slowly closed behind him, the steps dimly illuminated by small lights along the sides of the steps. After what seemed like forever, they finally reached the bottom of the steps, and entered a long hallway. At the end of the hallway, they came across a door but, unlike the cellar doors, had a normal doorknob.

They opened the door and entered the room, being hit with a wave of bright light. Inside was a large room with several computers, papers, and other objects. There were also several other robed figures, each working at a computer or comparing notes. However, the most noticeable thing in the room was the large tube at the end of the room, holding what appeared to be a human body with several wires and tubes connected to it.

"What's the diagnosis?" the cloaked figure asked loudly so that all could hear them.

"Vital signs are normal, and there has been a significant increase in brain activity," someone reported.

"It shouldn't be too long now before he wakes up," another said.

"Excellent..." the cloaked figure said. "Soon...we shall have a new, unstoppable leader for the Rare Hunters!"

**Domino High: 04-12-04: Monday: 8:20 a.m.**

The halls of Domino High were bustling with activity. Students walked the halls, obtaining books from their lockers for their needed classes, or just stood around inside the classrooms talking, waiting for the first class to begin. Yugi, however, just sat at his desk in his first class, reading a book that had been handed out to the class last Friday. The teacher told them to have at least half of it read before class today, but Yugi knew that he was more than likely the only one who 'did' read the book over the weekend.

"Hey, Yugi!" a voice shouted. Yugi looked up from his book and noticed one of his other classmates running up to him, who just so happened to be his best friend, Joey.

"Did you manage to read that book that got handed out on Friday?" he asked him.

"Yeah, I'm just about to finish it now," he replied.

"Aw man!" Joey shouted, gripping his hair on the verge of pulling it out. "I've only gotten through about a fourth of it! What am I gonna do!?" Joey was on the verge of a super meltdown.

"Relax, Joey. I doubt anybody else even managed to find the time last weekend to read it, so maybe the teacher will extend the deadline," Yugi told him, trying to calm his friend. Joey let out a sigh.

"Whatever you say, Yug. Hope you're right." The bell rang, signaling the beginning of class. Joey took his respectful seat beside Yugi as everyone else filed into his or her own seats. The teacher walked in a few seconds later.

"Good morning, class," she greeted, sitting her teaching bag down on her desk. "Now, before we begin...exactly how many of you got through at least half the book this weekend?" Joey was now feeling confident that nobody had read that book. In fact, he was grinning ear to ear with his eyes closed like an idiot.

"So, all of you but Mr. Wheeler then?" Joey's eyes shot open and took a quick look around the room. Everyone but him had his hands up!

"Wha!? But I was too busy to read it!" Joey yelled. Yugi couldn't help but chuckle as his friend over-reacted. Honestly, Joey should know by now that, unlike all the other teachers, Mrs. Cornette was very linnet when it came to homework.

"First of all, Joseph, you don't need to raise your voice. Second, I can understand if you were too busy. It is understandable, since it 'was' Easter weekend and all. Don't worry, I'll give you more time to read the book," she told him with a small smile.

"Oh, thank you!" Joey cried, breaking into tears. "You won't be sorry!"

"You're very welcome, Joseph." Mrs. Cornette turned around and began writing on the board. Joey slumped down in his seat and let out a sigh of relief. Class went on without any further events. They discussed the book that they were reading, Frankenstein, and Joey was quickly taking notes so he could understand what the heck was happening in the book. Yugi, however, already knew a lot about the book, so he didn't pay much attention. So instead, he chatted with the spirit that resided within his millenium puzzle.

"Shouldn't you be paying more attention to your instructor, Yugi?" Yami asked him. Yugi shook his head. They were chatting inside of Yami's soul room, as they had done many times in the past.

"Nah. She doesn't call on me for anything anyway. I doubt she'll notice," Yugi replied.

"Still, you shouldn't waste your education like that," stated Yami. "So what is on your mind?"

"Nothing much. Just wondering if you are making any headway with finding your lost memories," Yugi replied.

"Not much I'm afraid. Even though we possess all the items that will help me, it is still rather difficult," he said, looking up at one of the doors. "I've searched so many doors, yet there are just as many that have not been searched."

"I'm sure we'll find them in time," Yugi replied. He hated to see Yami so depressed. He looked up at all the doors as well and some time when by before anything was said. Yugi casually walked up to one of the doors and placed his hand on it in deep thought.

"I wonder..." he whispered. Yami overheard him.

"Wonder about what?"

"Well...you've been looking in all these doors, constantly searching for the right one," Yugi stated. "But...have you ever thought, even for a second, that your memories might not be here?" Yami raised an eyebrow at Yugi and rubbed his chin in thought.

"I've thought that on a few occasions. But if indeed they are not here, then where else could they possibly be?" Yugi turned around and walked back towards Yami.

"I don't know. But we'll find all the answers to our questions eventually!" Yugi told him with a smile. Yami smiled as well.

"Yes, as long as we work together, we'll find the answers. Now, I think it's time you get back to class." Yugi nodded and left Yami's soul room, waking up, so to speak, just in time for class to end.

"Now tomorrow, we'll have a quiz on the first five chapters of Frankenstein, so study tonight, and then-" Mrs. Cornette was interrupted by a loud knocking on the classroom door. The students turned their heads to look out the glass window of the door to see who it was, but none of them had a good angle. Mrs. Cornette walked over and opened the door.

"May I help you?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm looking for a room 214. Is this it?" asked the stranger.

"Yes, it is. Let me guess, you're the new student I was supposed to get this morning but didn't show up, correct?"

"umm...yes..." came a rather embarrassed reply.

"Well, it's okay. At least you showed up. Most new students chicken out on their first day. Come on in and introduce yourself to the class." Mrs. Cornette stepped away from the door to allow the new student in. The moment everyone got a clear view of his face, about all the girls in the classroom let out a gasp, for in their eyes, he was drop-dead gorgeous! The guys, however, were not all that excited. Yugi took a closer look at him though, for he had some rather startling features.

First off were his eyes. Although you couldn't tell their color from the orange sunglasses he was wearing, they were 'exactly' like Yami's! In fact, he had a very similar face construction to him! The other thing was his long purple hair that came halfway down his neck. It reminded Yugi of Pegasus in some odd way. Top it off, he had a build very similar to Joey and Kaiba. His clothing was an orange shirt under a purple overshirt and a pair of army green khakis, and he had orange shoes with a purple stripe going across the top. They also had a metal arch on them for grinding down rails and such. Yugi thought about getting himself a pair of shoes very similar one time but decided against it, figuring he'd hurt himself trying a stunt like that.

"Why don't you introduce yourself?" Mrs. Cornette asked him.

"uh, yes Ma'am," he replied, turning towards the class. "My name is Rahn, I moved to Domino from Washington D.C. for my fathers new job at the Kaiba Corporation. I'm...sorry I was late, I had a little bit of trouble finding the school. The directions my father gave me were...pretty bad to say the least." Some the class snickered at Rahn's misfortune, only to be silenced by Mrs. Cornette.

"Well, it is nice to meet you, Rahn. I'm sure you'll get acquainted with the rest of the class throughout the day." The bell rang a second later and all the students filed out of the classroom. A few of them, mostly the girls, introduced themselves to Rahn and made him feel welcome. Yugi would have greeted him as well, though he had to get to his next class, which was clear on the other side of the school. Joey had to go there as well, so the two chatted in the hallway as they went to their next class together.

"So, Yug...what do you think of the new guy?" Joey asked him.

"He certainly seems nice. Wish we could have introduced ourselves to him though," Yugi replied.

"Did you notice some of the features that guy had? Kinda creepy, huh?"

"Yeah, it is. But that's just the way he looks. I'm sure there are others that look like him too," said Yugi. The two proceeded to their next class without saying another word.

**Kaiba Corporation: 04-12-04: Monday: 10:17 a.m.**

Seto Kaiba sat at the desk of his office working on his laptop. He wasn't one to go to school anymore. Afterall, he had a company to run. Besides, all the assignments were put up on the school web page, and he could just simply do it at work or at home and e-mail the completed work to his teachers. Which is what he was doing now. Mokuba, on the other hand, did go to school. This gave Kaiba a little bit of much needed away time from his little brother. He did love him, but every brother needs a break from a sibling. And until 3:45, when the bus dropped Mokuba off hear at the office, Kaiba was on older brother break.

"Frankenstein, huh?" Kaiba mutter to himself as he looked at the next assignment for his English class. "I've already read it...three times even. I could probably type up a report now and be done with English for the rest of the week." Kaiba, just like Joey, didn't complete any of his work over the weekend either. He was busy at an Easter company picnic. Strangely enough, he invited Yugi and his friends to come as well. Kaiba paused from his work at this thought.

"...it still seems strange...a year ago, I wanted to stomp Yugi into the ground while wearing a pair of golf shoes. But now, I just don't seem to care anymore." Kaiba had loosened up quite a bit since the Battle City tournament a year ago. He no longer saw Yugi as a rival, but more as a friend now, which is still hard for him to admit to. In fact, while at the picnic, he had a normal duel with Yugi. No fancy duel disks, no holo images, just slap the cards down in front of yourself on a sturdy wooden table. Kaiba had to admit, it was nice just dueling for the fun of it. He hadn't had any real fun since...well, a long time ago.

"I can do this Frankenstein assignment later. Other than that, everything else is completed." Kaiba put all his work into an e-mail and sent it off. However, he immediately got a failure of delivery notice in his in-box. Thinking nothing of it, he just saved it all to a floppy disk and decided to send it later.

"Now," Kaiba said, picking up some papers on the corner of his desk and looking them over. "Time to do some 'real' work." The papers that Kaiba was looking over were from the Supreme Court. The government had investigated into Pegasus's Duelist Kingdom tournament, and discovered every single one of his sleazy attempts to try and take over Kaiba Corp., including kidnapping Mokuba. Apparently, one of his guards couldn't keep his mouth shut. Because of this, Pegasus lost all right to produce and distribute the duel monster's card game cards. Now the rights to produce the cards were wide open, but the courts would decide who would gain that right. Right now, Kaiba Corp. was the most suitable candidate. Until a decision is made, all production of the cards would cease.

"Real shame for Pegasus," Kaiba stated, flipping through the pages. "Not really though. That bastard deserves anything that gets dished out to him." Kaiba started wondering where all of this was a year ago. Had the government found out sooner, and Kaiba Corp. were to gain the rights to make the cards, then Kaiba would more than definitely have defeated Yugi at Battle City. But if they had...he probably wouldn't be at peace with Yugi and the others right now. Kaiba set the papers down and decided he'd better make a memo and send it through the building. He was about to type it up on his laptop when he noticed the screen starting to glitch.

"What's this?" he asked himself. He went to the screen display settings and attempted to fix the problem, but nothing happened. Curious, he wondered if it was possibly the Kaiba Corp. mainframe. Though he doubted there were any errors in a system that he himself designed, he pulled the plug from his laptop, severing its connection with the mainframe. The glitching screen had stopped now. Kaiba grunted and shutdown his laptop. He was about to go down and see about the problem himself when one of his employees's busted through the door.

"Mr. Kaiba, we have a problem!"

"Does it have anything to do with the Kaiba Corp. mainframe?" Kaiba asked.

"It does, sir. Someone is hacking into the mainframe and re-routing all commands to another source!" Kaiba's eyes widened and he immediately shot from his chair and bolted into a run out the door, his employee following him. The two entered the elevator and proceeded to take it down to the floor in which the mainframe central computer was located.

"It started only a few minutes ago," the employee explained, "Whoever is doing this, they are good. 'Really' good! I would have alerted you through our phone-line, but that's down too!"

"What was the total extent of the damage before you came up to get me?" Kaiba asked.

"We lost about 35% control of the mainframe, and all of the duelist profiles and duel disk commands and specifications had been downloaded to an unknown source and wiped from –"The elevator lights suddenly turned off and came to a complete stop.

"Terrific," Kaibi grunted. "Did I leave 'everything' in the building under the control of that thing!?"

"Umm...yes, Mr. Kaiba. You did," Kaiba gritted his teeth and reached up to push a part of the ceiling off.

"Remind me when we fix this problem to keep major building functions 'out' of the mainframe's control." Kaiba pulled himself up onto the top of the elevator and helped his employee up as well. There, they entered a ventilation duct and crawled out on the eighteenth floor, just two floors from where they needed to go.

"Quickly, to the stairs!" Kaiba bolted towards the stairs, making ninety-degree turns around cubicles, hoping over mail carts, and dodging other employees. He found the stairs and practically leaped down the remaining two floors, reaching his destination. He opened the exit out of the stairs and proceeded to the room in which the mainframe CPU resided, the very same room in which he oversaw the proceedings of his Battle City tournament. Upon arriving, he saw the very same women who were assigned to oversee the tournament struggling and typing away furiously at the keyboards in front of them to keep this hacker from getting in.

"What's the situation!?" Kaiba asked.

"75% of our mainframe has been taken over, and every file regarding the duel monsters card game has been downloaded to another source and erased," one of them answered. Kaiba growled as he ran over to an empty station and started typing away furiously, putting every firewall and password he knew around what was left of the mainframe while trying to retrieve what was lost. The women worked along with him, trying their best to keep up. After what seemed like several minutes, the hacker's little trot through the Kaiba Corp. mainframe seemed to have come to a halt. For Kaiba had set up approximately thirty firewalls, each one protected with a twenty-digit password. Kaiba couldn't help but smirk. It didn't matter how good this hacker was, there was no way they were going to get by this.

"Great job, Mr. Kaiba! The takeover seems to have stopped!" one of the women yelled. They started cheering and clapping their hands, but stopped abruptly when Kaiba turned his head over his shoulder.

"We'll celebrate later! Right now, we have to trace that hacker and get our files back!" The women quickly nodded and set back to work. However, one just looked at the screen in front of Kaiba.

"Umm...sir? You might want to take a look there." Kaiba turned his head back to the screen and he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Twenty of the thirty firewalls had been breached!

"Who the hell is this guy!?" Kaiba yelled. He set back to work, trying to set up any means of stopping this hacker, but Kaiba had been outmatched. He was too slow for the hacker. The hacker broke through his firewalls and took control over the rest of the mainframe. Kaiba Corp's main computer was now under their control.

"I can not believe this!" yelled Kaiba, slamming his fist into the keyboard, breaking it in half. At that moment, the whole mainframe was downloaded to another location, and all the lights in the room turned off, leaving Kaiba in darkness. One of the women happened to have a cigarette lighter and illuminated the dark room.

"I think this is what F.D.R. would call...'A day of infamy,'" she replied. Kaiba sighed and slowly turned around.

"I believe he would," he replied. He turned towards the mainframe CPU, barely illuminated by the flickering light of the lighter. The employee that came up to get him from his office finally arrived a few seconds later, looking around in the dark room.

"No success, sir?" Kaiba didn't show any signs that he heard him, but continued to stare into darkness.

"Tell everyone in the building to take the day off," Kaiba replied, a hint of defeat in his voice. "...there's nothing we can do now." His employees nodded and quietly walked out of the room, leaving Kaiba to stare into the darkness and contemplate his thoughts.

**Domino High: 04-12-04: Monday: 12:15 p.m.**

Yugi waited for Joey by the water fountain outside the cafeteria. It always took Joey a few minutes to get from his fourth class to the cafeteria. Yugi's fourth class, however, was just across the hall from the said area. He thought back to earlier that morning at the end of the first class.

"Rahn...there's just something odd about him, but I can't quite put my finger on it," he thought out loud. Yugi's thoughts were soon interrupted as Joey had finally arrived.

"Hey, Yug," Joey greeted as he rounded the corner. "Sorry to keep you waiting like that."

"It's alright, Joey," said Yugi as the two walked into the cafeteria. Yugi went to go find the usual place that he, Joey, and the others sat as Joey went up into the line to eat. Yugi couldn't understand how Joey could eat the school food, as it was kind of...not good, at least to Yugi's taste it was. As Yugi located the seats, he spotted someone else also sitting there. Usually nobody but them sat here, as it was way back in the corner. Upon closer inspection, Yugi noticed the long purple hair and the orange sunglasses. It was Rahn, the new student that had shown up in the first class that morning. Yugi thought of this as a good time to introduce himself and casually walked up to the table. Rahn had his head bent over a laptop computer and was casually typing on it with a rather satisfied smirk on his face.

'He must really like whatever it is he's doing,' Yugi thought. "Um, excuse me?" Rahn stopped typing and moved his glance to face Yugi.

"Hi there, may I help you?" asked Rahn with a smile.

"Is it okay if I sit here?" Yugi asked. Rahn waved towards a seat.

"Go ahead. Free country, afterall," he replied. Yugi sat down and set his book bag on the floor beside his seat.

"Thank you," said Yugi, extending his hand across the table. "I'm Yugi Mouto. Who might you be?" Rahn extended his hand as well and shook Yugi's.

"I'm Rahn. You wouldn't happen to be the same Yugi Mouto who won the Duelist Kingdom and Battle City tournaments, would you?" he asked.

"Yup, that'd be me," Yugi replied with a smile.

"The famous Yugi Mouto..." Rahn let go of the handshake and slowly closed his laptop. "I've always been wanting to meet you. You're practically a legend in the dueling world."

"Well, I'm sure there are others in the world who are much better than me," said Yugi. "So what were you doing before I got here?"

"Oh, just writing a little bit of code. Nothing special," he replied. Yugi was about to ask another question when Joey finally arrived with his meal, accompanied by both Tristan and Tea.

"Well, we seem to have a guest at our table today," Tea announced.

"Hi, guys," greeted Yugi. "This is Rahn, he's in me and Joey's first class." Joey raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yeah, the guy with the strange purple hair," Joey said, thinking out loud. Rahn chuckled a little.

"Yes, I admit, the hair is kind of odd." He then turned his eyes towards Yugi. "However, I've seen odder hairstyles." Yugi laughed a little.

"Well, I guess that's one thing we have in common."

"And who might you two be?" Rahn inquired towards Tristan and Tea.

"My names Tea, and this moron here is Tristan," Tea replied with a grin.

"Hey, if anybody is the moron here, it's Joey," Tristan announced. "If anything, I look like Einstein compared to him."

"That's right, rub it in..." Joey muttered as he took a seat beside Rahn.

"Woah! Wait a sec there!" shouted Rahn. Joey stopped midway, puzzled. Rahn reached over to the seat Joey was about to sit in and picked up a deck of duel monster cards. "Wouldn't want these to get harmed," he said with a smile.

"Sorry about that," apologized Joey, "I didn't see those there."

"It's okay, no harm done."

"So you're a duelist too, huh?" Yugi asked. "Well, yes, but I'm afraid I'm not all that good. I only just recently learned how to play and got my own duel disk from my father," Rahn replied.

"Well, me and Yug here can show ya the ropes!" stated Joey as he closed his eyes, leaving a smug look on his face. "I'm sure you know of our reputation." Rahn looked at Joey oddly.

"I know of Yugi's reputation...but I don't think I can recall anything about you, Joey." Joey practically fell out of his seat in shock.

"What do ya mean you can't recall anything!?" Joey yelled. "I was runner up at the Duelist Kingdom tournament!"

"Which you entered illegally," stated Tristan, taking a drink from a soda.

"And I was one of the Battle City finalists!"

"Which the only reason you were in the finals was because it was proven later that the rare hunters just changed your star level so you could enter and they could take your Red-Eyes," stated Tea.

"...you two are not helping."

"Oh, we know!" Tea replied with a smile.

"Well, I'll take your word for it, Joey," said Rahn. "Wouldn't want you falling out of your chair again." Joey groaned and took his seat once more. As lunch went on, Yugi and Joey taught Rahn the basics of the game and some good beginning strategies. They were also amazed that Rahn had a deck filled with such rare and unusual cards and were quite surprised he was just a beginner.

"So playing this Reigeki magic card would destroy all of Joey's monsters...and let me attack him directly?" asked Rahn. Yugi nodded. "That's right. However, you have to remember that he has a card facedown on the field, and it could be a trap. Though sometimes, with such an opportunity, you may want to take that risk." Rahn tapped his chin in thought. As he was about to decide on what to do a kid wheeling in a television from the audiovisual room swung the cafeteria doors open.

"You've all got to see this!" the kid yelled, pushing a tape into the VCR. "They reported this just a few minutes ago!" Everyone in the cafeteria gathered around the television. The tape was playing a news report that had aired a few minutes ago, as they boy had said.

"I wonder what's going on?" Tea asked nobody in particular. "I don't know. Maybe it's another one of those terrorist attacks? You know, like the World Trade Center or something," stated Tristan. The two were quickly hushed as the tape played.

"We have just received word that the Kaiba Corporation, the company that formerly produced weapons for the government's military and is now one of the worlds leading businesses in holographic programming and gaming, has just experienced a massive computer crash," said the news reporter. "From what inside information that we have received, it seems that a well experienced hacker had entered the company's main CPU mainframe and stole every last kilobyte of information inside. Not only that, but the entire computer system has been completely erased."

Joey whistled. "Man...poor Kaiba. The guy is probably torn up all to hell over this." Yugi and the others slowly nodded their heads. Kaiba prided himself on his computer skills just as much as he did with his duel monsters skills. If anything, his self-esteem has probably been totally destroyed, along with his computer.

"It is expected that stock in the company will fall considerably, and if the powerful corporate giant can't get itself back up soon, it is likely too fall into bankruptcy. In other news..." The kid who brought the television in turned it off. This was a major upset to the students and there was an immediate uproar. Kaiba Corp. provided almost all of their parents' jobs, and if the corporation went under, then there would be some serious hard times ahead.

"Wow, this really blows," said Joey. "What do you guys think we should do?"

"Maybe we can go and visit him when school closes out today?" suggested Tea. "He's bound to still be there, even if his computer isn't working."

"Probably trying to bring it back up no doubt," mused Yugi. "Hey, wait, Rahn? You said earlier during the first class that your dad worked there. Is that going to affect your family in any way?" Yugi turned to Rahn but noticed he was just starring at the blank screen of the television, much in the same manner that Yugi had found him looking at his laptop when he first walked into the cafeteria.

"Hello? Earth to Rahn?" Joey waved his hands in front of Rahn's face. It took a second, but Rahn finally snapped back to reality. "Hmm? Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I don't think it will cause too much of a problem. We still have much of the money my father made while we were living in D.C., so I think we can survive."

"Hey, the bell for us to go to the next class is about to ring," Tristan announced after taking a look at the clock. "Yeah, we should get going," Yugi stated. "We'll meet at the front of the school later and take a bus to Kaiba Corp."

"I'll have to pass on that," said Rahn. "I barely know the guy for starters. Plus, I was planning on visiting this card shop of your grandfathers that you mentioned earlier, Yugi. Maybe I can get your grandfather to teach me a little bit, since you hold him in such high regard."

"Oh, that's right! You need directions to it, don't you?" asked Yugi, going back to the table to get his backpack.

"Directions would help considerably," Rahn replied smiling. Yugi opened his backpack and pulled out a pencil and paper. He quickly scribbled the address of the card shop on it, then handed it to Rahn. "There you go! Hope you find it easily, I'm not too good with giving directions."

"Oh, if I can get just within the general vicinity of it, I'll find it. Besides, can't be as bad as my dad's directions," said Rahn, pocketing the piece of paper in his shirt pocket. "I guess I'll see you guys later then!"

"Alright then, we'll catch ya later," said Tristan, giving a wave and walking out. Tea walked up to Rahn and planted another piece of paper into his hand. "Talk to ya later!" Tea smiled and walked off. Yugi and Joey followed her out, giving a wave back as they did so.

"Hmm...such a nice little bunch," Rahn mused to himself. He unfolded the paper Tea gave him and looked at it. It was her cell phone number. "This is the twelfth one I've gotten today. Heh, made me too handsome for my own good I suppose." Rahn pocketed the number and walked back to the table. He sat down and opened his laptop back up then began typing on it once again.


	3. The Egyptian Gods Stolen

**Domino City: 04-12-04: Monday: 3:10 P.M.**

The bus rolled on down the streets of downtown Domino City, makings its scheduled stops along it's route, picking up and unloading passengers. Yugi and his friends had immediately hoped on after school had ended and were on their way to Kaiba Corp. to see how Kaiba was coping with this hacker situation. While on their way, there was one question that everyone had on their mind: who the hell could have the technical know how to pull a stunt like that?

"I say it's some super geek wierdo who does nothing but stare at his computer all day," stated Joey. "I dunno. Maybe it's Pegasus?" Tea suggested. "Seems to me he'd be pretty mad at Kaiba right now, what with his rights to print the Duel Monsters cards taken away. Maybe it's payback?"

"That doesn't sound like Pegasus though," said Yugi. "But we won't find out until we get there." As the bus went rolling along, Tea began to hear something outside. "You guys here that?" she asked. Yugi, Joey, and Tristan looked around. They didn't see anything.

"Tea, I think all that worrying and panicking you do has finally gotten to you," said Tristan. He suddenly felt a sharp pain in his foot, then began yelling as he tried to pull his foot out from under Tea's heel. "I'm serious, guys, I do hear something!" Joey looked around again and noticed two people running along side the bus as fast as they could. The weren't just any two people though, it was Duke Devlin and Joey's sister, Serenity. They were yelling for the bus to stop.

"Yo! Driver!" yelled Joey. The driver looked back at him through his mirror. "Stop the bus, there's two people running along side us trying to get on!" The driver did as requested, stopping the bus and opening the side door. Duke and Serenity filed in, obviously exhausted from having to run so fast.

"Sorry about that, guess I didn't see you at the last stop," said the driver. Duke waved his hand and paid for his and Serenity's bus fair. "Don't worry about, no harm done..." said Duke, exhaustion in his voice. The two made their way to where the others were sitting and plopped down in a bus seat near them.

"Miss the bus?" asked Tea. Duke tossed her a glare. "No. We just thought we'd get some exercise chasing it."

"So, what were you and Serenity doing together anyways?" asked Tristan suspiciously. 'Oh, here we go...' thought Yugi. Duke was now glaring at Tristan.

"We were both late trying to catch the bus. That's all," Duke replied. Tristan hmphed, crossed his arms, and looked out the window. Serenity just chuckled. She rather liked the fact that there were two guys fighting over her, but she'd probably have to pick one of the two sometime soon before they killed eachother. Joey knew what she was doing, so it didn't bother him anymore as much as it did a year ago at Battle City. In fact, he had been trying to figure out which side of the family deviousness came from because what Serenity was doing was just cruel to poor Tristan and Duke.

"So I guess you guys saw that news report too, huh?" Yugi asked them. "Yeah. I saw it while I was in home economics," said Serenity. "Computer programming for me," replied Duke. "I honestly must say, whoever did it has got some big brass ones." Everyone nodded, despite Duke's rather 'vulgar' description. The ride went along without any further occurances until the six finally reached their destination. Kaiba Corporation.

The group filed out of the bus and stood in front of the large corporate building, it's several glass windows reflecting the sunlight in every direction, making it almost blinding to look at.

"Well, let's head on inside and see what's up." Yugi and his friends walked towards the large building and stood infront of the glass door. Yugi pushed on the door but it didn't budge. "Looks like it's locked," said Yugi. "Great," Duke groaned, "now what?"

"Hey, guys!" Startled by the new voice, the group turned around to see Mokuba, Seto's little brother, running up to them with his bookbag on his back. "I guess you guys heard too?"

"Yeah, we were gonna see how your brother was doing, but the building is locked," Serentiy informed him. "Oh, that's no problem. I have a key right here!" Mokuba announced proudly, holding up a ring of several keys.

"Yeesh, how many keys do you need, Mokuba?" Joey asked. "There's one for every door in the building, except for the ones that require key cards. I'm not allowed to go into those yet, not til I'm older." Mokuba quickly walked up to the door and unlocked it, pushing it open. "My best bet is that he's still in his office, if he's still here at all. I hope you guys like walking though." Yugi tossed Mokuba a glance. "Why is that?"

"The elevators were controlled by the computer, and since that's down, we can only go up and down by stairs," Mokuba informed. Mokuba quickly led them to the stairs in the main lobby of the building and entered, the others following him in.

"Woah!" Joey yelled, his voice echoing up several flights of stairs. "Exactly how many floors do we have to climb?"

"Seto's office is about halfway up, on the fourteenth floor," Mokuba replied. Everyone groaned and began their journey up the stairs. As they climbed up, Yugi began asking Mokuba questions about the situation at hand.

"Do you know of anyone that would want to do all this to your brother and why?" Mokuba shook his head. "Not really. Over the years, Seto's made quite a few enemies that would like nothing more than to see him topple. The charming attitude he used have didn't make him very popular." Yugi nodded in understanding. Kaiba used to be quite a jerk, like it was a third hobby next to duel monsters and computers. However, Yugi had noticed a change in Kaiba in the past year, mostly because he was 'nicer' to them, and started calling Joey by his first name. The group continued on up the steps without saying anything else.

**Yugi's Home: 04-12-04: Monday: 3:45 p.m.**

Solomon casually swept the welcome mat in front of his card shop/home. He paused briefly to look at his watch. Yugi had called earlier saying he was going to be a little bit late getting home, but it would usually be fifth-teen or twenty minutes, not thirty-five!

"I hope nothing's happened to him..." Solomon said to himself and continued sweeping. He was interrupted yet again when somebody's shadow swept over him. Startled, he turned around to see a cloaked woman standing behind him, her eyes covered by a large hood with a purple eye on it.

"Oh, you startled me! Can I help you?" Soloman asked. The woman nodded. "I wish to purchase a certain set of cards. Might you have what I'm looking for?" Soloman scratched his head. "I might. You'll have to come in and look around. Here." Solomon opened the door for the cloaked woman and she walked in, Solomon entering behind her. The woman looked around the shop and saw several assortments of rare and powerful cards on display. However, none of them seemed to spark her interest.

"What set of cards are you looking for?" Solomon asked as he took his place behind his counter. "If it's an Exodia set, I'm sorry to say that I don't have one." The woman shook her head and approached the counter. "No, I'm interested in a set of cards much stronger than Exodia." Solomon laughed at this statement.

"Maybe you're new to duel monsters. There are no cards stronger than Exodia," he stated. "Oh, but there are," the woman replied, pulling three pictures from her pocket. Soloman took the pictures and examined them. Upon looking at them, he did recognize them. Yes, they were a set of three cards that Yugi owned and kept in a locked safe up in his room. Solomon had only seen the cards once, and that was when Yugi put them in the safe. He had said something about them being so strong that they should never be played with. What did he call them...God cards?

"These are the ones I'm looking for. Obelisk The Tormentor, Slifer The Sky Dragon, and The Winged Dragon of Ra. It would be a great help if you had them," she stated. Solomon put the pictures down trying to figure out what to do. He knew how important those cards are to Yugi, so he couldn't sell them. Even if he could, he didn't know the combination to the safe. It also didn't seem this cloaked woman wasn't going to leave without them.

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I've never heard of these cards, nor seen them," Solomon replied. The woman was quiet for a moment and stood there looking at Solomon, making him feel a bit uneasy under her stare. The woman turned away and looked around the shop a bit more.

"Such valuable cards....it'd be a shame if something happened to them, wouldn't it?" she asked. Solomon knew where this was going. "Threats won't get you anything. I told you, I've never seen them."

"Well, then maybe I can refresh your memory a bit?" she replied as she reached for something in her cloak.

**Kaiba Corporation: 04-12-04: Monday: 3:55 P.M.**

"Oh, thank God..." Tea replied as she leaned against the wall. Everyone else did the same thing or just slumped to the floor, groaning in agony. Mokuba just looked at them. "Geeze, guys, you're all out of shape."

"Well, we're not used to going up that many stairs at one time!" Joey yelled. Mokuba just shrugged. "Guess I'm just used to it then." After everyone had gotten their breaths back they exited onto the four-teenth floor of the building. "Seto's office is just at the end of this hallway," replied Mokuba. As the group walked down the hallway they noticed several pictures on the wall, all of them of duel monsters, most of them from Kaiba's deck.

"Wow. I didn't think he had paintings made of his favorite cards," said Joey, carefully examining a painting of a Blue Eyes White Dragon. "Yeah. Seto searched for and bought all of his favorite duel monsters paintings," said Mokuba. "These are the ones that Pegasus hand-painted himself to be printed on the cards."

"So these are the originals, huh?" Serenity asked. "Yup! Even though Pegasus is a creep, Seto always liked his artwork," Mokuba stated. "Well, no time for gawking. Come on!" They continued on down the hall, still glancing at the paintings as they passed by them. They soon arrived at the door to Kaiba's office and Mokuba quickly fumbled his keys to unlock it. Once he found the key, he inserted it into the keyhole and opened the door. However, he paused before entering.

"Listen," he whispered, "don't say or ask anything that may upset him, alright? Even I don't know what could set him off or make him feel worse in this kind of situation." Everyone nodded and followed Mokuba in. The sun shined brightly into Kaiba's office from the window behind his desk. Kaiba's laptop was there, running on battery power and casting a hardly noticeable glow onto the desk chair which was turned towards the window.

"Seto?" Mokuba slowly walked over past the desk to see his brother sitting in the chair. He had his head resting in his hand and a look on his face that showed less emotion than usual. One thing that startled Mokuba was that Kaiba was slouching very badly, a pose that Mokuba had never seen his older brother sit in.

"Is he over there, Mokuba?" Tea asked. Mokuba turned towards them and nodded, then turned his attention back to Kaiba. "uhh...bad day, huh? ...well, duh, of course it was..." Kaiba sighed and sat up straight. "Yeah, it's been a bad day...not much I can do about that." Kaiba turned his chair back around to face Yugi and the others."Looks like you all heard too." Yugi gave a nod. "What happened, Kaiba?" Kaiba gave another sigh and lowered his head.

"A hacker broke into the companies computer mainframe and stole all the data relating to the battle city tournament, as well as all the duel disk specifications and duelist profiles that we've collected. They also crashed our computer beyond repair. Believe me, I've already tried to repair the damage just to get the functions that control the building to work. Nothing." The room fell quiet for a long time as Kaiba stared down at the top of his desk, suddenly finding it rather interesting. "I didn't like the taste of defeat the first few times I had it. It doesn't taste any better now, that's for sure."

"Hey, don't you worry, Kaiba," Joey popped up. "We'll help find this hacker guy for ya, no sweat." That little statement of Joey's brought Kaiba's head facing them again. He was rather surprised that Wheeler was willing to help, considering their 'extreamly' rocky relationship. "I appreciate the thought, Joey..." Kaiba began, "but it's impossible to track this guy."

"Well, it doesn't hurt to try, right?" asked Yugi. Kaiba groaned rather loudly. He didn't want any help with this, but it looks like they were going to help whether he wanted them to or not. "Listen...this guy was able to out-wit me. Do you actually think that he'd be careless enough to leave a trail?"

"Even the most skilled and experienced at something eventually mess up," Tea replied. Kaiba rubbed his chin in thought for a moment. Tea did make a point. Although he was a skilled player of duel monsters, there have been the very few times he messed up a move. But still...

Kaiba's thoughts were derailed when Tea's cell phone rang. Everyone looked at her as she dug around in her purse and pulled out the hot pink phone and answered it. "Hello?"  
  
"...Tea...Come quick...bring...Yugi..." came Solomon's voice, then the connection died. "Hello!? Mr. Motou!?"

"What is it, is my grandfather okay?" Yugi asked, panic in his voice. "I'm not sure, but he sounded pretty hurt," Tea replied. "Well, what are we waiting for!? Let's get over there!" Joey yelled, making a break for the door.

"Not so fast," said Kaiba. Joey stopped in his tracks and looked back at Kaiba, who was closing his laptop and taking out a pair of keys from his pocket. "I'll drive you there. It will take too long to get there by bus or on foot." Everyone seemed rather shocked by Kaiba's declaration but were not going to argue with him.

"But Seto, do you think everyone will be able to fit in our car?" Kaiba shook his head. "No, we're not going to take my car. We're going to take my limo." Now everyone was 'really' caught off guard from that. "I didn't think you knew how to drive it," Mokuba said rather stunned. "I've rode in it enough times and watched the driver to know what I'm doing. Now come on." Kaiba walked past everybody and out the door, Mokuba following close behind.

"So...that was...odd," said Tristan. "Yeah, since when was Kaiba so generous?" asked Joey. "I dunno, but I sure like this Kaiba better than the older one," Serenity replied. "He seems nicer."  
  
"And completely depressed too," Duke added. They quickly followed behind Kaiba, though Yugi was held back by a small voice in his head.

"Yugi...I can sense a darkness approaching...be careful..." came Yami's voice. Yugi gave a nod and ran to catch up with the others.

**Yugi's Home: 04-12-04: Monday: 4:40 P.M.**

The black colored Kaiba Corp. limosine came to a stop in front of the card shop that served as Yugi's home. Not a second went by when the doors suddenly burst open and Yugi and his friends came pouring out. Yugi made a run inside of the card shop and found it to be in shambles. All of the cards were strewn about on the ground, the glass case where the register was was shattered, and one of the book cases had fallen over.

"Grandpa!?" Yugi shouted into the shop. He ran in a little further and yelled again, not getting an answer. Joey and the others soon filed in as well. "Wow, this place got trashed!" Tristan yelled. "Yeah, no kidding," said Duke. Yugi was about to run into the living room when he heard a groan come from under the fallen book case. Yugi ran over to it and looked underneath to find his grandfather, the phone only a few inches from him with the line cut.

"Guys, give me some help!" Yugi called and began to lift the case. Joey, Tristan, and Duke quickly came over to lend a hand. Tea, Serenity, Kaiba, and Mokuba filed into the shop in time to see the four boys lift the case up. As Joey, Tristan, and Duke put the case back up, Yugi kneeled down beside his grandfather, who wasn't in the best condition.

"Yugi..." Solomon whispered. "I'm sorry, I couldn't..."

"Couldn't what?" Yugi asked, a few tears in his eyes. "I couldn't...keep those cards from her...I'm sorry..." Solomon passed out in Yugi's arms. It wasn't until Yugi sat him down did he notice the blood that was on his hands and on the floor. Whoever wrecked the shop had cut his grandfather pretty bad.

"I'll call 911," said Tea, taking out her cell phone. Kaiba came over and looked down at Solomon. He remembered doing the very same thing to the poor old man, but he didn't hurt him this badly. Kaiba was feeling really sorry for what he had done back then. Yugi, however, couldn't bring himself to stand up. He just stared down at his grandfather, trying to decipher what he had said while holding back his tears. Then it suddenly hit him.

"The Egyptian God Cards!" Yugi sprang up and made a mad dash for his room. "Yugi, where are you going!?" Joey yelled, quickly following his friend. Kaiba watched the two pass by him then decided he would follow them too.

"You guys stay here, me and Wheeler will see to Yugi. In the mean time, I'd try and stop the old man from bleeding to death." They all nodded and Serenity immediately went to find the bathroom to get some towels while Mokuba found his way to the kitchen and found some dish towels. The two quickly went back to the shop area, giving Tea and Tristan the towels as they worked to keep any more blood from coming out. None of them really liked the site of blood, let alone getting their hands in it, but it was necessary.

Upstairs, Yugi had made it to his room and looked inside his closet, only to find the small door to the safe that he kept his most treasured items in to be broken. Yugi looked around furiously for the three God cards, but his efforts were fruitless. The cards were gone. Joey and Kaiba arrived a few seconds later to see Yugi completely break down on the floor.

"It's my fault..." Yugi cried quietly. "If only I didn't keep those cards here..." Joey slowly walked up and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, bud. Don't worry, your grandfather is going to be fine. He's been through a lot worse situations, remember?" he said, referring to when Pegasus stole Solomon's soul. Yugi wiped the tears from his eyes and gazed at the safe.

"Who would want to do such a thing though?" Yugi asked. "Why would they want to hurt my grandfather for no reason at all?" Yugi was doing his best to keep the tears from coming, but they leaked out anyways.

"It was probably the same person that hacked into my database," Kaiba replied. Yugi and Joey looked toward him, seeing Kaiba looking at a poster of the Dark Magician that Yugi had up on the wall. "Think about it. My database is hacked into and all the duelist profiles and duel disk specification were stolen. Now, the Egyptian God Cards have been stolen too." Yugi thought on this for a moment, for Kaiba made an excellent point. There was no way any of this was coincidence. "This would also narrow the search a little," Kaiba added. "It has to be a rare hunter..."

"A rare hunter?" Joey asked. "But I thought after Yugi defeated Marik at Battle City, the rare hunters disbanded?" Kaiba snorted a little. "It's hard to get rid of slimeballs like them." The sounds of sirens soon came to their ears as the three decided to head back downstairs to join the others.

The next hour passed with Yugi and his friends telling the police what they knew and anybody they knew who would want to hurt his grandfather. However, it was mostly the others telling them what they knew. Yugi was busy trying to care for his grandfather but the medical technicians didn't let him get anywhere close to him, so all he could do was watch. They quickly loaded Soloman into the ambulance and hauled him off to the hospital, though they wouldn't let Yugi ride with them because of the cramped space.

"I sure hope your grandpa is alright, Yug," Joey said walking up to Yugi, who was watching the ambulance leave. "I hope so too. He's everything in the world to me, I don't know what I'd do if he were..." Yugi stopped his sentence there and remained silent.

"I think the old geezer will be alright," Kaiba said walking up next to Yugi. "If he could survive me then he can survive about anything."

"Yeah, but you didn't exactly cut him open though like that," said Tristan, who was looking back at the card shop which the police were no collecting evidence and barracading the entry. The neighborhood had become quite interested into what was going on and were filing out of their homes to see.

"Regardless, I'm going to find whoever did this and make them pay for what they did, and get those cards back," Yugi stated angerly. Tea sighed and looked up at the top of one of the nearby buildings, which the horizon was setting upon. 'Poor Yugi...seems out of all of us, he seems to suffer the most, and from people who just want to pick a fight too...hey...what's that up there?' Tea shielded her eyes and looked more closely. It appeared to be a person and they were watching them like a hawk.

"Hey guys...who is that up there?" Tea pointed to the figure and everyone turned their attention to them. Whoever it was, they were wearing a robe-like outfit. Mokuba quickly dug into his vest pocket, pulling out a small telescope and looking through it towards their mysterious watcher.

"Can you tell who it is, Mokuba?" asked Serenity. "Well...it appears to be some woman in a long black robe," he replied.

"Why does 'that' sound familiar?" Joey stated sarcasticly. Mokuba continued to look on and noticed the woman move her hand to her pocket, where she pulled something out. She quickly flashed them to her onlookers and Mokuba gasped. "She has the Egyptian God Cards!" That definitely got everybody's attention, especially Yugi's, who had reached over and snatched the telescope from Mokuba to see for himself. Sure enough, that's what she was holding.

"It was her!" Yugi yelled. The woman quickly turned and began to run, jumping to one of the neighboring buildings. Yugi began to run after her and tossed the telescope back to Mokuba. "Yugi, wait up!" Joey yelled, who was quickly followed by Serenity. "Hey, wait for us!" Duke yelled who was followed by Tristan and Tea. Kaiba watched them go and then walked back to his limo. Mokuba pocketed his telescope and followed.

"Seto, shouldn't we help them?" Mokuba asked his older brother. Kaiba reached the limo and opened the driver side door. "We are. We're going to follow them, now get in." Mokuba smiled, running up and hoping into the passenger side of the limo. Then the two sped off and followed Yugi and his friends.

**Streets of Domino: 04-12-04: Monday: 7:20 P.M.**

The woman was hoping from building to building, even running across some street lights and hoping off of them to cross some of the wide intersections. Yugi was pursuing her relentlessly. In fact, Yami had already taken over for him and was doing a good job of keeping up.

/Why would she want to harm my grandfather?/ Yugi asked. (She obviously wanted the Egyptain God cards), Yami stated. (But to do something so despicable to get them is completely uncalled for!) Yami carefully watched the woman as he ran down the sidewalks. Oddly enough they were empty and there didn't seem to be a car on the road at all. The woman gave a quick glance down to Yami, then made a left turn at an intersection.

Yami quickly followed her, but as she was halfway down the next block, she quickly turned and jumped over the road to the building on the opposite side and disappeared. "Damnit!" Yami yelled. He continued on and made a turn at the next intersection in the direction she had went, but could no longer see her.

"No, I lost her!" Yami bent over on his knees so he could catch his breath, but was still looking around to see if he had missed her. Behind him he could hear the footsteps of his friends approaching fast. /Where did she go?/ Yugi asked. (I dunno, but she's bound to surface again,) Yami stated.

"About time you stopped!" Joey yelled as he stopped next to Yami. "You lose her?" Yami sighed and stood back up straight. "Yes. She got away." Joey snapped his fingers just as the others approached.

"Where'd she go?" asked Serenity. "She slipped through our fingers, sis," Joey replied. Yami slowly slipped his coat off and draped is over his arm, he had gotten quite hot from all that running.

"Who was that, one of those rare hunter freaks?" asked Duke. "Had to have been, who else 'could' it be?" Tea replied. Kaiba's limo soon pulled up, shining its headlights on the group as Kaiba and Mokuba stepped out. "I take it you lost her?" Kaiba asked. Yami quickly looked at him and gave a nod, resulting in Mokuba lightly banging his fist on the engine hood. "Well, what now?" asked Tristan, "You think we should head to the hospital and check up on Mr. Motou?"

"That sounds like a good idea to me," stated Tea. "Yugi, what about you?" Although it was Yami in control at the moment, in everyone elses eyes he was Yugi. So Yugi turned around and began walking towards Kaiba's limo. "Sure, if Kaiba doesn't mind giving a ride?" Kaiba shook his head and pressed a button on the drivers door for the other doors to open. "Hop on in. It's a one way ride though, me and Mokuba have to be heading home." Everyone nodded and proceeded to the limo. As they approached they heard what sounded like clothes flapping in the wind up above them. They looked up just in time to see someone land on top of the limo's hood, successfully denting it. Big time.

"Hey!" Kaiba yelled while jumping back, startled by the strangers appearance. Yugi and Mokuba quickly recognized them though as the same woman from before. It looked like they hadn't lost her afterall.

"Well, well, well," she began, standing up on the limo and removing her hood. She had long silver hair with several black lightning bolt shaped stripes going through it and unusual eyes of green, yellow, and orange. She also had very pale skin, almost white. "Did you all get some good exercise chasing after me?"

"Who do you think you are, lady!?" Joey yelled. The woman laughed a little. "I'm Calli, that's who." Joey growled loudly from having her turn his sentence around on him. "What is it that you want, and why have you hurt my grandfather!?" Yugi yelled.

"I already have what I want, starfish head. I'm just here now to have a little fun with you. You're grandfather on the other hand was an added bonus." Yugi's face flushed a deep red. "You've got some nerve." Calli laughed and hoped off of the limo. "Why, thank you. Now, let's get started. You do want to get your cards back, right?" Yugi growled and gave a nod.

"Very well then. Here, catch!" Calli threw a duel disk over to Yugi, who barely caught it since he wasn't expecting anything to be thrown to him. "We'll duel for them. I win, I keep them, and if you win, you can have them back. Sound fair?"

"They're mine to begin with, I shouldn't have to duel for them!" Yugi yelled. "Aww, is the rockstar wannabe gonna cry? Shut up and load your deck!" Calli yelled, who slipped her deck into the duel disk she was already wearing.

"Watch yourself, Yugi! Remember, these rare hunters are tricky!" Joey yelled. "Yeah, don't let your guard down!" Duke called out. Yugi stood on one end of the intersection and Calli on the other, the limo's headlights shining on them from a third instersection, which was also where everyone was standing.

"We'll duel by battle city rules with four-thousand lifepoints each. The winner claims all three of the Egyptain God cards, and the loser...well, loses." Everyone facefaulted to the pavement, expecting something with a little bit more of a twist.

"Enough, let's just do this!" Yugi yelled, launching his duel disk holo-emitters. "Alright!" Calli yelled, doing the same. "Let's duel!"


	4. DUEL! Yugi vs Calli

**DUEL – Yugi v.s. Calli: Streets of Domino: 4-12-04: Monday: 7:45 P.M.**

Yugi decided that he would go first and drew a card. He didn't have much of a hand, but that may have been a good thing. Being able to play all your cards at once on the first move would leave him an empty hand, which he doesn't need this early on. He selected three cards. "For my first move I'll summon Alpha The Magnet Warrior 1400/1700 in attack mode! Next, I shall place these two cards face-down, and end my turn." Calli smiled and drew a card, beginning her turn.

"Alright then. First I'll place a card facedown, then summon LaJinn The Mystical Genie of The Lamp1800/1000!" The large green genie appeared on the field when she placed the card down. "Now I'll have him attack your Magnet Warrior, knocking off four hundread of your lifepoints!" LaJinn began charging an attack in its hands, then threw it at Yugi's magnet warrior. However, Yugi was prepared.

"I activate my trap card, Negate Attack! It stops your monsters attack and ends your battle phase!" Calli shrugged upon seeing the trap card stop her genie's attack, it wasn't any big deal to her. "That ends my turn," she announced. Yugi nodded and drew his next card. It was exactly what he needed right now so he could do some good damage to her lifepoints. However, her face-down card worried him, so he needed to take that out first.

"To start my turn, I'll play Mystical Space Typhoon on your face-down card!" Yugi's spell card appeared on the field and a typhoon blew away Calli's trap, a Sakaretusu Armor, which would have destroyed Yugi's monster if he attacked. "Next, I shall summon Gazelle, The King of Mythical Beasts 1500/1200 in attack mode!" The Gazelle materialized on the field and released a mighty roar, announcing its presence on the field. Calli chuckled.

"Both of your monsters are too weak to destroy my LaJinn. I was hoping for a far better challenge from the great Yugi Motou. This is how a second rate duelist would play!" Yugi smirked. "That may be, but sometimes the simplist strategies can be effective. I'll end my turn for now." Calli drew her next card and carefully studied her hand. She had read up on Yugi before accepting this job from her master and knew how Yugi dueled. He'd probably spring that face-down card on her when she attacked. However, that didn't worry her too much.

"First I'll place this card face-down on the field, then I shall summon my Shadowknight Archfiend 2000/1600!" Yugi looked at the threatening fiend monster. He had never seen a level four monster with two-thousand attack points before. "Now I shall use my LaJinn to attack your magnet warrior again! Go my genie and destroy his monster!" LaJinn began charging another attack and threw it at Alpha. However, Yugi was ready yet again.

"I activate this quick spell card, Rush Recklessly! It adds 700 attack points to all my monsters for this turn, giving my magnet warrior 300 more attack points than your LaJinn!" Alpha hit LaJinns attack back at it with its sword like it was swinging at a ball with a bat. The attack made contact with LaJinn, blowing the monster apart and lowering Calli's lifepoints down to 3700.

**[Lifepoints: 4000/3700]**

"Heh, well played, Yugi. You not only destroyed my LaJinn, but you managed to keep me from attacking with my Shadowknight. I'll end my turn for now." Yugi grinned and drew his card. This was going to be easier than he first thought it would be. He drew his card and looked at it carefully. His Magic Cylinder Card. He'd need a spellcaster on the field though in order to use it. He didn't have one in his hand now, so he'd save it for later. However, he did have one card he could use.

"I'll place this monster card in face-down defense mode, then a card face-down, ending my turn." Calli couldn't help but chuckle a bit more. Yugi seemed to be playing more defensively than offensively, which was fine for her, because her strategy was going to kick in now. She drew her card.

"Firstly, I'll have to pay 900 lifepoints in order keep Shadowknight Archfiend on the field. But behold, I'm also activating this trap card, Battle Scared!" Yugi raised an eyebrow at this trap. This was the second card she played that he had no idea what it did. "In order to understand its effect, I'll have to explain archfiend monsters like Shadowknight here. Archfiends are similar to chess pieces. There's a pawn, a rook, a knight, a bishop, a queen, and a king. Each of them require a lifepoint payment when I enter my standby phase. Battle Sacred here doesn't prevent me from losing lifepoints for keeping them out, but it does force you to pay the same ammount!" Yugis eyes widened and he looked down at his lifepoint counter as it lowered 900 points along with Calli's.

**[Lifepoints: 3100/2800]**

"See? Now I shall summon my Vilepawn Archfiend 1200/200 in attack mode! As long as he remains on the field, you can't attack any other archfiend monster. So, to strengthen him, I'll add on the Axe of Despair spell card, increasing his attack points by 1000." [Vilepawn: 2200/200] Yugi was beginning to get slightly worried now. He had never heard of these archfiend monsters before and from the looks of it Calli had several in her deck, along with traps and spell cards that corresponded with them.

"I have a nasty feeling about your face-down monster, so I will take out your other two monsters. Go forth Shadowknight and Vilepawn! Eradicate his Gazelle and Magnet Warrior!" The two monsters charged forth towards Yugi's monsters, but Yugi had a surprise for Calli yet again.

"Go, Spellbinding Circle!" Yugi's trap card revealed itself and shot a circle towards the Vilepawn Archfiend, ensnaring it and stopping its attack. "As long as my Spellbinding Circle is on the field, your monster can not attack or change its battle position!" Calli smirked. "Very well, but that doesn't stop my Shadownight though!" The Shadowknight Archfiend easily cut through Yugi's Gazelle, slicing its head off and blowing it into a thousand pieces. Yugi's lifepoints went down by 500 points.

**[Lifepoints: 2600/2800]**

On the sidelines Yugi's friends watched him duel against Calli. None of them had ever heard of archfiend monsters either, not even Kaiba. He was rather intrigued by these cards and was wondering if they held other special abilities. "Yugi's not looking too good right now," Duke replied. Joey just scratched his head. "I dunno. Yugi is putting up a good fight, and I'm sure he's got something planned that'll wipe the floor with this pasty looking broad."

"Well maybe, but she's using cards I don't think even Yugi has seen before. She could be hiding something from him," said Tea. She looked over to Serenity to see that she was watching the duel rather intently. She recalled that since their little experience in that virtual world that she wanted to learn more about that game and would watch a duel carefully and try to learn, which appeared to be what she was doing now. Tea had no idea how she could be so calm as Yugi was fighting for something very important to him.

"Before my turn ends, I'll play this spell card, Pandamonium!" Yugi looked on again with interest as the entire area around them changed. Several twisted and deformed columns appeared out of the ground, along with a strange arch in the middle of the field. The area around them also turned into a thick red fog. "What kind of spell did you just play, Calli!?" Yugi called. Calli chuckled. "You'll find out soon enough. I'll end my turn now, so you can begin, unless you want to surrender now?"

Yugi growled and drew his card. He finally got what he needed, the Dark Magician Girl! He'd summon it now, but Yugi didn't feel it was the right time just yet. However, if needed, he could stop one of Calli's monsters attacks for one turn. But, if she summoned another, he was going to be prepared, and he had just the card in his hand to use.

"I'll play this card face-down and end my turn. But rest assured that I will defeat you." Calli couldn't help but laugh at Yugi's last statement. "Are you kidding me!? You haven't even attacked me yet!" Calli drew her next card. "How do you plan to win if you don't attack?" Yugi just gave a smug look. "I don't need to attack defeat you." Calli laughed more. "Yeah, right. Well, we'll see if you can back up your claim. Now, 900 lifepoints will be sacraficed for Shadowknight, and 500 more for Vilepawn!" Yugi looked down at his lifepoint counter as it went down 1400 points.

**[Lifepoints: 1200/2800]**

"Wait!" Yugi called out, "How come your lifepoints didn't go down!?" Calli smiled and waved her hand at the Pandamonium spell card. "Pandamonium saves my lifepoints from being sacraficed to keep my archfiends on the field. It also allows me to summon another archfiend monster from my deck that has fewer level stars than any that you might destroy." Yugi looked panicked now. If Calli didn't attack again this turn...

"First I'll summon my Terrorking Archfiend 2000/1500 in attack mode, I couldn't summon him unless I had another archfiend on the field. Now, I'll play this spell card, Equipment Swap! It allows me to target any equipment spell card on the field and put it on one of my monsters. So, I'll choose my Axe of Despair on my Vilepawn and place it on my Terrorking!" [Terrorking: 3000/1500] Yugi watched on, waiting for Calli to attack.

"Now, Terrorking Archfiend, wipe out his face-down monster!" Terrorking raised its sword and leapt into the air, bringing itself down on Yugi's face-down card, Big Shield Guarder, easily cutting through its 2600 defense points and destroying it. "I'd trade that shield in for something a little better next time," Calli replied, but noticed Yugi had a grin on his face. "Something funny?"

"Oh, not really. You just increased my lifepoints by 3000 is all," Yugi replied as a trap card appeared on the field. It was the card he played face-down on his last turn, Enchanted Javelin. "Enchanted Javelin adds the attack points of your monster to my lifepoints after damage calculation. Since no damage was done, I get a solid 3000 extra lifepoints."

**[Lifepoints: 4200/2800]**

"Well, I'll just have to fix that, won't I? Shadowknight, attack him directly!" Shadowknight lunged forward and attacked Yugi directly. However, Yugi just grinned wider. "I'm afraid that won't do anything. I'm discarding this monster, Kuriboh! Once it's discarded to the graveyard, the battle damage done by one of your monsters becomes zero!" Calli snarled. Now he had more lifepoints than he originally started out with! "Fine. I'll end my turn." Yugi nodded with a smile and drew his next card, and it was exactly the one he needed too. Looking at his hand now, he had Dark Magician Girl, Sage's Stone, and Monster Reborn. Using all of these, plus his face-down Magic Cylinder, he could take Calli down.

"First I'll play Monster Reborn, reviving Alpha The Magnet Warrior 1400/1700! Next, I'm going to sacrafice him in order to summon my Dark Magician Girl 2000/1700. Lastly, I'llactivate this spell card, Sage's Stone, which can only be played when Dark Magician Girl is on the field, allowing me to summon forth from my deck, The Dark Magician 2500/2100!" Calli raised an eyebrow at Yugi's move. Him summoning his Dark Magician to the field has always meant a bad thing for any duelist that faced Yugi.

"I'll end my turn now,' Yugi announced. Calli widened her eyes confused. "You're not attacking?" Yugi shrugged. "I already told you that I don't need to attack you in order to defeat you." This really pissed Calli off, to be hearing something like that from her opponent. 'How dare he!' she said inside her head. 'The absolute nerve of that boy! He'll regret that!' Calli drew her next card and was pleased with what she saw. Yugi was going down!

"This ends it, Yugi! First, you lose 2200 lifepoints thanks to my Battle Scared trap card so my archfiend monsters can stay on the field! Next, I'll play this spell card on my Terrorking Archfiend, United We Stand!" Yugi watched without saying a word. "It increases my monsters attack and defense points by 800 for every monster I have on the field, including the one I attach it to! So my Terrorking Archfiend will receive an an additional 2400 attack and defense points! [Terrorking: 5400/3800]"

"Oh no!" Tristan yelled, "That can't be good!" Mokuba whipped around to Tristan. "Naw, you think!? Of course it's not good!" Tea and the others looked on with worry. Kaiba especially, seeing a monster actually stronger than his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. As a matter of fact, it just shot down his spirits even more than they were. "This will definitely not end well!" Joey yelled.

"Your friends are right, Yugi! It won't end well, because I'm going to obliterate you! In fact," Calli played a card from her hand, "I'd say this is Checkmate!" The spell card, Checkmate, appeared on the field. "This allows my to attack your lifepoints directly with my Terrorking Archfiend! Go forth, my creature, and wipe out his lifepoints!" The Terrorking took to the air once again, aiming right for Yugi. However, Yugi just smiled. "You've activated my trap card, Magic Cylinder!" The trap appeared on the field as well as two cylinders that the Dark Magician moved between of.

"I couldn't activate this trap unless I had a spellcaster on the field! Now, I'm going to end this, by sending your attack right back at you!" The Terrorking flew into one of the cylinders and a few seconds later flew out of the other, going right back towards Calli, ready to attack.

"What!? No, this can't be!" Calli yelled, crossing her arms and bracing herself for her monsters attack. The Terrorking flew past her other two archfiends and slashed at Calli, sending her sailing to the ground painfully, and wiping out her lifepoints.

**[Lifepoints: 2000/0000**]

Yugi grinned as Joey ran over and locked Yugi in a headlock. "Yeah! Who's my main man, eh!? I knew you'd wipe the floor with her, Yug! You didn't even have to attack her to do it either, that's just amazing in itself!" Yugi grinned widely and slipped out of his friends headlock. "Thank you, Joey. Now, there's something I need to do." Yugi walked up to Calli, who was still laying down on the ground facing the sky, and bent down next to her.

"You're going to return my cards, and then you're going to go to jail for what you have done to my grandfather," Yugi replied coldly. Yugi looked at her more carefully and noticed that she was unconcious. "Great," he muttered. The others quickly ran up next to him as Yugi rose to his feet. "Great duel, Yugi! That was one of the best ones I've seen in a long while!" Duke congratulated.

"Yeah, talk about slamming your opponent into the dirt!" Tristan replied. Kaiba bent down to Calli and began searching her body for the egyptian god cards. However, he turned up with nothing. "She doesn't have them on her," he replied. "She must have passed them onto one of her colleagues." Yugi's eyes widened. That precious few minutes that he lost track chasing after her! She must of gave them to someone else during that short time! "Damnit!" Yugi cursed. Tea's cellphone quickly rang a few seconds later. She dug around in her purse, pulled out her phone, and answered it. "Hello?"

"My, your friend needs to watch his mouth," came a disguised voice. Tea's eyes widened and she looked around on the streets and windows. She didn't see anybody. "How...where are you?" she asked. "More importantly, who are you and how did you get this number?" That caught everybodies attention. "Who is it, Tea?" Serenity asked.

"Who I am and how I got this number is of no concern to you. Put Yugi on. Now." Tea pulled the phone away and looked at it, then at Yugi. "They want to talk to you, Yugi." Yugi reached over and took the phone from Tea. "Who is this?" he asked.

"That will be revealed in due time, Yugi. But first off, I want to congratulate you on defeating Calli. You are as good as they say you are, not having to attack that entire duel. I must say, I'm impressed." Yugi's eyes narrowed. "Where are you?"

"I'm in a safe location far from you and your peanut gallery. I not only watched but listened in onr your duel by using one of Kaiba's satelites, which is very easy to do once you have control over his entire network," the voice chuckled. "You're the one who hacked Kaiba Corp's computer system!?" Yugi yelled. Now Kaiba was brought to attention and grabbed the phone from Yugi. "Listen here, you little punk! When I find you, you're a dead man! You hear me!? A dead man!"

"Ow, could you yell that any louder? Yes, I'm the one who hacked your system. Oh, it was very easy to do, I'm surprised nobody else attempted to do it. Of course, I'm not your typical person," the voice replied. "What do you mean?" Kaiba asked. "Ah, that is yet another thing that I will reveal later. Well, I should be going now, got a rare hunter guild to operate, plus I'm still going through all this data that I 'borrowed' from you," the voice chuckled. "Tell my brothers and sisters I said hi!" The phone clicked and the dial tone was heard. Kaiba grunted and closed Tea's phone, handing it back to her.

"What did he mean...brothers and sisters?" Kaiba mused. "Is that something he said?" Mokuba asked. "Yes, he said for me tell his brothers and sisters hi," Kaiba replied. "What could he mean by that?" Serenity asked.

"I don't know," said Yugi, "but it seems one thing is definitely clear. The rare hunters are back." Everyone nodded and looked down at Calli. "Tea, you should call the police and get them down here. Tell them we caught the one who hurt my grandfather," Yugi told her. Tea nodded and flipped open her cell again, dialing the number.

"So what now?" Joey asked. "Should we head to the hospital now and check up on your grandfather?" Yugi nodded and began making his way to Kaiba's limo. "Someone will have to stay here for the police," he replied.

"Me and Duke here can do that, the rest of you can go on ahead," Tristan replied. The group nodded and Tea closed up her cell. "They'll be here in a few minutes," she informed. "Alright, let's get moving. The rule still stands though, one way trip," Kaiba told them as he entered the drivers side of the limo. Everyone else filed inside of the vehicle, save for Duke and Tristan, and drove off down the road. A few minutes later, Tristan and Duke saw three sets of sirens coming towards them, and began putting together what they should tell the police.


	5. Kaiba's Discovery

**Domino Hospital: 4-12-04: Monday: 10:00 p.m.**

It took them about an hour and a half to get there, there was a serious traffic jam. However, they had managed to get there, and that's all Yugi cared about. Kaiba had made good on his promise. He had dropped Yugi and his friends off at the hospital then he and Mokuba went on home themselves. Yugi, still in his yami form, and his friends entered the hospital and immediately found the front desk where a nurse was sitting. She didn't look like a nurse though, having bright pink har, purple eye-shadow, and a spiked dog collar. She also had her hospital uniform open like a robe, revealing an Ozzy Osborn shirt. Not exactly professional looking, and the fact she was twirling a pen in one hand while typing away at a keyboard rather boringly didn't help much either. She noticed Yugi and his friends approach and set her pen down.

"What can I do for ya, hun?" she asked in a friendly tone. "We're hear to see my grandfather, Solomon Motou." Yugi answered.

"Okay, let's see here..." the punk nurse mused to herself as she typed in the name and began looking. It didn't take her too long to find him. "Here we go, Solomon Motou. Hmm...oh yeah, the beat-up old guy they wheeled in here not too long ago." She looked quickly at Yugi then back at the screen with a smile. "I think I can see the resemblence between you two. Well, it says here that he had several deep cuts and bruises and a bit of internal bleeding, plus a minor concusion. They just got him out of surgery not too long ago."

"Is he going to be alright?" Yugi asked. The nurse looked at the screen again and gave a quick nod. "Yup, seems he'll be just fine, hot stuff," she replied winking atYugi. Yugi just blushed a bit, but Tea gave a slight glare to the nurse. She hadn't admitted to actually liking Yugi like that yet and got somewhat flustered when another girl hit on him. "He's on the fourth floor, room 403, hun." Yugi gave a nod and thanked the nurse, then proceeded to the elevator with Joey, Tea, and Serenity behind him.

"Boy, that nurse is a weird one, huh?" Joey asked as they arrived at the elevator, "And that pink hair? Man, what's up with that?" Serenity giggled a bit. "Isn't any weirder than this," she replied, swiping at Yugi's hair real quick. Yugi wide eyed and fixed his hair as they entered the elevator. "Hey, this takes forever to style!" The three chuckled as Yugi attempted to fix his hair and arrived on the fourth floor in just a few seconds. Yugi, finally finished restyling his hair, exited the elevator with Joey, Serenity, and Tea. They walked down the long hallway looking for Solomon Motou's room. It didn't take them long to find it.

"Yugi, why don't you go in and check up on him by yourself?" Tea suggested. "I'm sure you're the one he would really want to see right now." Joey and Serenity agreed with Tea and told Yugi to go in as well.

"Alright. I'll fill you in on his condition" Yugi's friends nodded and left to go find a place to sit while Yugi entered his grandfathers hospital room. Before walking in though Yami allowed Yugi to take over, so now he was smaller. Inside the room he saw his grandfather hooked up to several monitoring devices with an oxygen mask put over his face. Yugi slowly walked over to Solomon's bedside and sat down, looking at the chart beside the bed. It seemed he'd be okay but it would probably be several days, maybe weeks, before he could leave.  
  
"Yugi..." Yugi looked up from the chart and saw his grandfather with his eyes half open. He quickly put the chart down and placed his hand over his grandfathers. "Hey there...how you doing, grandpa?" Solomon smirked a little at his grandson and answered back. "I've been through worse..." Yugi smiled. His grandfather was a tough old bird. "Did you get your...cards back from that theif?" Yugi took on a downtrotted look and shook his head no. "She slipped out of my sight for a few seconds while I was chasing her, long enough to pass the cards on to someone else." Solomon looked sadly at Yugi then quickly glanced away.

"I'm sorry, Yugi...I know how much...those cards meant to you..." Yugi shook his head and patted his Solomon's hand. "Don't worry about it. We'll get them back eventually. Right now, your health is higher priority." Solomon had fallen back asleep and didn't hear Yugi. Yugi patted his grandather's hand again then decided to leave. As much as he'd like to stay and watch his grandfather, he had homework to do and it was getting late. He also had quite a bus ride home.

Yugi got up and left the room where he found Tea, Serenity, and Joey sitting at the other end of the hall where there was a lounge and a television. He quickly walked over to them and sat down on a sofa that Serenity was sitting on. "So how is he?" Tea asked. Yugi shook his head. "He's okay, but it's going to be a long time before he's up and moving again."

"That's good," said Joey. "Does one of us need to stay over night or should we all head home?" Yugi thought for a moment on that.

"I think we should all head home," said Yugi. "Grandpa should be okay without any of us being here." Everyone nodded in agreement and made their way out of the hospital so that they could catch a bus back home to their neighborhood. Yugi had several questions running through his mind. Questions such as who was the new leader of the rare hunters and why did he want the egyptian god cards. Yugi knew what horrible power the god cards possessed if they were handled by those with evil intentions so he had to get them back from whoever this guy was.

**Kaiba Mansion: 04-12-04: Monday: 11:00 p.m.**

Kaiba and Mokuba had had a quiet drive home, neither of them exchanged much in the way of words. Mokuba knew how distressed his brother was and didn't want to agitate him so he was quiet the whole drive. Now they were both sitting in a large dining room area having a late supper. Mokuba was famished and gobbled his food down rather quickly. Kaiba, however, didn't really touch his meal.

"Seto? You haven't touched your food at all," Mokuba said. Kaiba closed his eyes and sighed, pushing the plate away. "I'm not very hungry, Mokuba."

"Why not?" Mokuba asked. "You haven't eaten anything all day. You should get something in your system." Kaiba stood up from his chair and slowly walked towards the window, looking down at the plush green yard bathed in the moon light.

"Mokuba...my pride was hurt today," said Kaiba. "I don't think food is going to heal it." Mokuba looked sadly at his brother. He honestly didn't know what to say in order to cheer him up. Besides, it was hard to make Kaiba happy about anything, even though he had lightened up considerably.

"...plus," Kaiba added. "The person who called us on Tea's cell phone was the leader of the rare hunters. He was the one responsible for hacking into my database and hijacking all of those files."

"He also said something about brothers and sisters," Mokuba added, putting a hand to his chin. "You think he's related to somebody we know?" Kaiba turned away from the window and walked back towards the table. "It's possible," he said. "But he could be just playing with our heads."

Mokuba was silent for a few minutes then pushed his own plate away. "Well, I'm full now. I'm going to head on to bed," he said. "You might want to do the same. You've had a rough day." Mokuba walked off out of the room, leaving Kaiba alone to ponder his thoughts.

"None of this makes sense," he mused to himself. "That hacker would've needed my computer skills in order to even break into the Kaiba Corp. mainframe. Not many people have the ability to do that and even then why would they want all of the duel disk data and duelist profiles?" Kaiba strung all he knew thus far in his head. Whoever the new leader of the rare hunters was was obviously a computer genius. All he took was duel disk data and duelist profiles...

"...and then he sends a rare hunter to successfully make off with the eygptian god cards!" Kaiba mentally slapped himself. "Of course! With the data he took from the main frame he could control the operating functions of every duel disk on the planet and he could use the duelist profiles to obtain rare cards from other duelists. He'd have the ability to choose when a duel took place if a duel disk is in any way involved." Kaiba then started pacing the room. "With that data and the egyptian god cards...would could they possibly be planning?"

**Yugi's Home: 04-06-04: Monday: 11:20 p.m.**

Yugi walked slowly off the bus stop about a block away from his home. He could see down the street that the squad cars and the ambulence that was there earlier were now gone. He let out a small sigh, glad that he could at least go home and not have to worry about disturbing any evidence. Yugi made his way to his home and entered it, walking by the mess that the scuffle between Solomon and Calli had caused. He figured he clean it up sometime tomorrow.

"Yugi?" Yami appeared beside him in a spirtal form. "What is it, Yami?" Yugi asked. Yami was quiet for a little bit then spoke. "I believe that evil is once again encrouching upon us." Yugi sighed and walked up the stairs to his room with Yami following him.

"I know, Yami. It seems like someone is out to get us once again,"said Yugi as they entered his room. "This seems different than our last encounters, Yugi." Yugi quarked an eyebrow as he undressed into some sweat pants and an old T-shirt. "How so?"

"I don't think whoever the new leader of the rare hunters is after us specifically or any of the millenium items." Yami stated. "His intentions seem to be on other matters."

"Like what?" Yami shrugged. "Call it a hunch I guess. Plus there didn't seem to be any kind of hint that shadow magic was involved."

"I guess that makes sense," Yugi mused. "We're gonna have to watch our backs until we can figure all of this out." Yami nodded in agreement. "Yes. There is a chance that the rare hunters will strike again, even if they already have what they want." That said, Yami disappeared and Yugi tucked himself into bed. Although he doubted that he'd have any sweet dreams after what had happened today.

**Domino High: 04-07-04: Tuesday: 8:10 a.m.**

Tristan and Duke were both standing around the front of the school talking amongst themselves before the bell for the first class rang. The night before they had told the police that they had tracked down the person who hurt Yugi's grandfather and that Yugi beat her in a duel monsters game. They didn't tell them of the missing god cards though.

"Last night sure was hecktic, huh?" said Tristan. Duke nodded in agreement. "Yeah. The Calli women was strange. In an odd way, she kinda reminded me of Bakura. What with the hair, pale skin and all that."

"I actually thought it 'was' Bakura for a few moments," Tristand added.

"Did somebody say my name?" a voice came from behind them. Duke and Tristan turned around and noticed Bakura standing there with his bookbag slung over his shoulder. "How are you guys doing this morning?"

"Not all too great," said Tristan. "We had one hell of a night last night." Bakura raised an eyebrow at the two. "Do tell."

"Yugi's grandfather was hurt very badly last night by a rare hunter because he wouldn't give her Yugi's egyptian god cards," Duked informed. "In the end she got them anyways, but Yugi tracked her down and beat her in a duel to get them back except she didn't have them on her. Me and Tristan here had to give a report to the police once they arrived and arrested her."

Bakura was flabbergasted by this news. "And it didn't cross your minds to tell me of this?" Tristan and Duke rubbed the back of their heads embarrassed. "Sorry, dude," Tristan apologized. "We were a little caught up in what was going on to think about it." Bakura gave a light shrug.

"Ah well, no worries. Is Yugi's grandfather okay though?" he asked.

"We don't know ourselves," Duke replied. "Yugi and the others went to go see about him why we dealt with the police."

"I see," Bakura mused. "Well, the old man's been through worse, right? Should be easy for him to make a comeback!" Bakura said with some enthusiasm. "Yeah, that's true," Tristan agreed. The bell soon rang and Tristan and Duke waved their goodbye's to Bakura. He watched the two enter the school along with everyone else. Nobody noticed the strange darkness that seemed to suddenly appear in Bakura however.

"An interesting turn of events..." he mused to himself. "The rare hunters have returned. I wonder why." Bakura looked up to the sky in thought. 'To top it off, the egyptian god cards have been stolen from little Yugi. I'm going to have to look into this further...someone else could be after the millenium items and I can't let that happen.' After staring up at the sky for a bit longer Bakura entered the school and proceeded to his first class. "...God, I hate this place. If I didn't have to keep myself a secret...first thing I'm going to do when I have the power of the millenium items is burn this place into ashes. Not only is it painfully annoying...the building itself is tacky."

**Domino High: 04-07-04: Tuesday: 8:25 a.m.**

Joey was going full speed ahead on his Frankenstein essay. When he and Serenity got home the previous night he had immediately set to work on reading the rest of the book. After he did that he started on his paper. Unfortunately, he didn't have it complete before school started and was now running on a full pot of coffee trying to get it done.

"Well good morning, Joey!" came a voice from beside him. Joey stopped for a brief moment to look up and see Rahn standing next to his desk. "GoodmorningyourselfthereRahn,whatdoyawant?" Rahn looked at Joey oddly before he was able to understand what Joey said. "umm...what are you doing?"

"Homework," Joey replied simply. "BeenupallnightworkingonitandI'vegotfifthteencupsofcoffeerunningthroughme," said Joey. Once again Rahn took a moment to decipher what Joey said. "oh..." he replied."Well, if it's alright with you, I'll just take this seat right here behind you." Joey waved his hand at the desk saying 'all yours, bud.' Shortly thereafter, Yugi entered the room and took his usual seat next to Joey. Joey noticed him and quickly stopped what he was doing and began speaking normally.

"Hey, Yuge, how you holding up?" he asked. Yugi shook his head. "Not so well. I barely caught a wink of sleep last night. Plus, when I get home, I've got to clean up the entire shop." Joey whistled. "That's too bad. You want me to come over and help ya clean it up after school?"

"You don't have to but I'd appreciate it," Yugi replied.

"Maybe I can help a little bit?" Rahn butted in. "I overheard your little conversation. What exactly happened?"

"Well, my grandfather was...robbed, to say the least, and was injured," Yugi explained. "He's in the hospital now and the doctors say he's doing fine."

"What a terrible thing to happen," Rahn stated. "My best wishes to your grandfather. I still have your address so I'll just drop by later this afternoon and lend you a hand cleaning you place up. Sound good?" Yugi nodded and thanked Rahn. At that moment the bell rang for class to start.

**Kaiba Mansion: 04-13-04: Tuesday: 12:30 p.m.**

"You really should be focusing more on your schoolwork than on this," said Kaiba's computer.

"I will after I track this guy down," Kaiba replied. "Nobody makes a fool out of Seto Kaiba and gets away with it."

"Fine then. Ego trip aside, what about your company's mainframe computer? Is it salvagable?" the computer asked him. "I've got the best computer mechanics in the world working on it as we speak. They'll get it back online but I'm going to have to reupload all the data it had...and all that was stolen by that hacker."

"Ah, I see...you're gonna find him and then get your data back, right?" Kaiba smirked. "Exactly. 'After' I trash his face..." Kaiba tryped away furiously on the keyboard in front of him. He knew there had to be some way to find this guy, whoever he was. Everything leaves a trail but it all depends on how good a hacker is at hiding it.

"He had to have come in through a back door somehow..." Kaiba mused. "If I can find that door then I'll be able to find out where he did it from." He checked every possible place he could think of in which someone would be able to get into the mainframe. His first thought was maybe inside the building itself but then he realized that the only two places one could do that from would be his office or where the computer itself was located. Obviously none of them could be it. His second thought were places that could connect to the computer outside of the building. That included his helicoptors, some of the cars, and the Blue-Eyes White Jet. After checking those and finding nothing he was at a loss.

"I'll give this guy some credit. He covers his tracks well," said Kaiba. "Obviously so if you can't find him," his computer quiped. "What do you say we take a little break and see how those technical mechanics are doing on the mainframe? I can try and connect to it if you want." Kaiba's eyes widened with realization and he began typing furiously at the keyboard again. "I say something?"

"Tell me. Yesterday did you detect any outside connection in your database?" The computer was silent for a moment. "Now that you mention it...my hard drive did run a bit slower than usual about the time your mainframe crashed. Why, do you think he connected through me to the mainframe?"

"That's exactly what I'm thinking!" After some searching through the database Kaiba found what he was looking for. A foreign I.P. address that he didn't recognize. "You know what to do," Kiaba told the computer.

"That I do, Mr. Kaiba! Let the hunt begin!" The computer connected to one of the company's satelites and began tracking the connection the hacker used to the location that he connected his computer to. Withing a few minutes they had it.

"Looks like he did it from one of the warehouses in the harbor," The computer stated.

"The harbor, huh? That's where the rare hunters held Tea and Mokuba captive during the battle city tournament." Kaiba stood up from the chair and begain to walk out. "Thanks for the help. I'm gonna go investigate this personally."

"Not a problem, Seto. Watch your ass!"

**Yugi's Home: 4-13-04: Tuesday: 4:30 p.m.**

Yugi, Joey, and Rahn got off of the bus in front of Yugi's house with the intent on cleaning up the place from the previous nights scuffle. Before coming to school Yugi had done a little bit of cleaning but he could only do so much.

"Wow..." Rahn whistled as he stepped inside behind Yugi and Joey. "This place got pretty trashed, huh?"

"Trashed doesn't even describe it, man," Joey replied as he took a good look around. "So where do we start at?" Yugi tapped his chin in thought. "Well...why don't we get all of the cards and glass out of the floor first, then we'll move that book case back to where it goes?"

"Sounds like a plan," Rahn said to himself as he sat his bookbag and his laptop down on a nearby chair. Yugi and Joey did the same and the group set to work. Yugi and Rahn picked up all of the cards and carefully alphabatized them in piles according to their rarity, attribute, and type while Joey took care of the glass and other floor debris. It wasn't long before the trio had everything spruced up.

"You've got a lot of rare cards in this place, Yugi. It's no wonder you're considered the best," said Rahn as he stared at some of the cards he had picked up and began sorting through.

"Yeah. Since my grandfather owns the shop I get first dibs on any of the new cards that come in." Yugi stated. "Same goes for Joey too, but Grandpa sometimes makes Joey have to pay half price or something like that."

"It's a half now half later sort of gig," Joey replied as he dumped the broken shards of glass from the dustpan into the trash.

"Must be nice," Rahn said as he sat the cards down in their proper spots. "Before I get too into this I should probably ask how your grandfather is doing?" Yugi closed his eyes and sighed.

"When we saw him last night he was doing alright. I probably should give the hospital a call or go visit him again."

"Don't worry, Yuge, he's been through worse. Remember when Pegasus stole his soul with that millenium eye of his?" Joey asked. Rahn looked up at Joey with interest. "Millenium eye, what's that?" he asked.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe us if we told ya," Joey replied. Rahn looked at him quizzically and turned to Yugi, who just smiled and rubbed the back of his head. "Alright...if you guys think it's that far fetched, but-"Rahn was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Just a second!" Yugi called out and ran towards the door. When he opened it he saw Tea braced up against the door panting like she had just ran a marathon. "Tea!? What are you doing here?"

"Yugi, your grandfather is missing!" Yugi gasped in shock. "Missing!? What happened!?" Joey and Rahn both arrived at the door to hear what Yugi said.

"Who's missing?" Joey asked.

"Yugi's grandfather," Tea started. "They think someone came in through the window and got him. I tried to call you but the operator kept saying that the line was disconnected."

"Well duh, the phone line was cut, remember?" said Joey. Tea placed her hand on her face and groaned. "ANYWAY, the police are already there, but they wanted me to bring you, Yugi. They said the found something you should see."

**Domino Harbor: Warehouse23: 4-13-04: Tuesday: 3:45 p.m.**

Before Yugi and the others found out about Solomon's kidnapping, Kaiba was searching the warehouse he had tracked the hacker to. He had been searching for a few hours now but had turned up nothing. As far he could tell this building was filled with nothing bute crates, boxes, and more crates.

"I'm missing something, I know I am!" Kaiba said to himself as he walked down another isle of crates. As we walked he felt floor give away a little bit under his foot then go solid again. "...Wait a second..."

Kaiba turned around and put his hand on the floor, hitting it to find the spot again. He found it again felt around for any sort of latch. Sure enough he found one and lifted it. The hidden door rose up and revealed a set of steps that went down into a poorly lit corridor.

"Check and mate," Kaiba muttered then began walking down the steps. "I'll teach this punk a lesson or two about messing with my business." As Kaiba walked downstairs he noticed that the poor light was starting to get better. He finally came to a simple door and cautiously opened it. He wasn't prepared for what was inside.

"What...is this?" he asked himself as he looked at the room in awe. There were several computers on various tables around the room and in the far off corner was an empty tube. He walked inside slowly and carefully examined the room.

"I may have underestimated this guy," Kaiba mused to himself as he looked at some of the computers. They were indeed advanced, more than capable of hacking into an advanced computer network. Only one problem though. Where was the operator?

"He must be around here somewhere with his goon squad of rare-"Kaiba stopped in front of a screen that was still running a program of some kind. As he examined it his eyes started to shrink in horror, then he began to read it aloud.

"Maxamillion Pegasus DNA...accepted...Joey Wheeler DNA...accepted...Marik Ishtar DNA...accepted...Mai Valentine DNA...accepted...Yugi Motou DNA...accepted...Seto Kaiba DNA...accepted!? Estimated time until completion: thirty-two weeks. Estimated time left...zero..." Kaiba slowly moved his eyes towards the empty tube he saw in the corner. "...so that's what the tube is for. They combined all of that DNA together and created some sort of clone. Question is...where is it now?"

Kaiba slowly stepped away from the screen a little shakily. Somewhere there was a partial clone of himself walking around. Without a second thought he took out his cell phone and dialed a number. After a few rings somebody answered.

"Kaiba residence, Mokuba speaking."

"Mokuba, it's me," Kiaba greeted shakily.

"Seto? What's wrong? You don't sound too good," Mokuba replied worridly.

"Listen. I've found something very important here. This is more than just hacking into our database or stealing the egyptian god cards. The rare hunters have-" There was silence. "Seto? Seto, are you okay?"

A foot came down and smashed Kaiba's cell phone, then dropped the lead pipe. Next to Kaiba's unconcious body. "Things are going just as the master planned," the attacker mused to himself. He then took out his own cell phone and dialed a phone number. A few seconds later someone picked up.

"Did you get him, Nokame?"

"Yeah, I got him. Alert the master and tell him that Kaiba took the bait hook, line, and sinker." Nokame hung up the phone and looked down at Kaiba. "The fun part is soon to begin, my unconcious friend." Nokame then grabbed Kaiba by his ankles and dragged him away, not noticing Kaiba's deck box fall out of his trenchcoat pocket, and hauled him away.


End file.
